Hot Currency Crushes Fourstar Crook Stakes by 8 1/4 Lengths

Hot Currency made the Fourstar Crook look less like a test than a takeover, rolling home by 8 1/4 lengths in Aqueduct’s New York Stallion Stakes Series division and giving Linda Rice a filly who suddenly has to be measured against tougher New York sprint company.

The 4-5 favorite covered the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:17.32 on April 11, with Manuel Franco nursing her through fractions of 22.77, 46.73 and 1:10.73 before she drew away from Greek Goddess, Irish Fortune, Miss Jane Hathaway and Rock Steady Babe. The race was worth $200,000 guaranteed, and Hot Currency earned the $110,000 winning share while Greek Goddess took $40,000, Irish Fortune $24,000, Miss Jane Hathaway $12,000 and Rock Steady Babe $8,000. Clap Back, Hip Hop Dancer and Power of Women were scratched.

The victory was the first stakes win of Hot Currency’s career, but it did not come out of nowhere. She entered with only six lifetime starts and had already shown enough promise to come into the race as a horse worth following, then confirmed it with a performance that left the rest of the field chasing shadows. Equibase listed the New York-bred bay filly as foaled May 1, 2023, by Central Banker out of Calidez, by Spring At Last, and charted a 57-foot run-up before the final time. BloodHorse also attached an A++ trueNicks rating to the filly, another sign that her profile has been building well beyond a single afternoon.

There is also a bigger sire story underneath the result. Hot Currency became Central Banker’s 19th stakes winner, another line for a New York stallion who keeps supplying sharp runners that fit the local program and, in the right spot, can threaten beyond it. For a filly purchased for $82,000 as a yearling and developed patiently, the payoff is now visible in black type and in the kind of margin that changes how horseplayers look at a horse’s ceiling.

For Linda Rice, the question is no longer whether Hot Currency belongs in stakes company. She has already answered that. The next decision is placement: whether to stay in the New York-bred sprint lane or take aim at stronger company that can show how deep the local filly sprint hierarchy really is. This win was decisive enough to suggest she has moved past useful and into dangerous.